1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the field of chat messaging.
2. Description of the Related Art
Users of chat systems, or so called instant messaging systems, often face the problem of communicating with a chat participant who suddenly discontinues participation in an ongoing or established chat session. The discontinuation of the chat session may be either an intentional termination or an unintentional termination, for example in the case of a network disruption or other failure. Alternatively, a chat participant may choose to discontinue participation in a chat session simply by changing his or her online status to one that indicates “away”, “on the phone”, “busy”, or some other condition rendering the chat participant unavailable to incoming messages. If a chat participant is in the midst of composing a message to another chat participant who disconnects from the chat session, the message cannot be delivered immediately to the disconnecting participant as a chat message. Instead, most conventional chat systems store undelivered messages for delivery to the disconnecting chat participant until such time when the chat participant logs back on to the chat system. In consequence, the participant composing the message has no means of delivering the message to the disconnecting chat participant and no means of knowing an approximate time when the disconnecting chat participant will eventually receive the message.
Even more problematic is the situation in which a chat participant has no contact information other than a chat system username for the disconnecting party. This situation can arise in a variety of circumstances. For example, if a chat participant is traveling and accesses a chat session from a remote location, other chat participants may not have contact information other than a home or work number, neither of which would be useful in contacting the traveling chat participant. In that case, unless the disconnecting party chooses to notify other chat participants, for instance, within a chat message, the other chat participants would have no means of contacting the disconnecting chat participant outside of the chat system environment. As a result, a chat participant sending a message cannot be assured of timely receipt of the message by the disconnecting chat participant. Rather, the sending chat participant knows only that when the disconnecting chat participant eventually logs back on to the chat system, the chat message will be delivered. For time critical messages, delivery at an unspecified future time and/or date is not sufficient.